


Santa, Baby

by iselsis



Series: Bruce Wayne is Santa Claus [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Santa Claus, Bruce Wayne is Santa Claus, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Gen, Homelessness, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Street Rat Jason Todd, Thief Jason Todd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 08:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28348110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iselsis/pseuds/iselsis
Summary: Bruce has been Santa Claus a long time, but nothing like this has ever happened before. There is a boy, stealing the presents out of his sleigh.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Series: Bruce Wayne is Santa Claus [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077449
Comments: 52
Kudos: 305
Collections: Jason Todd Steals the Batmobile Tires





	Santa, Baby

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit late because when I scheduled my writing, the long BHTI second chapter wasn't included, but then y'all were too cute, so I wrote it anyway. This is a bit late, but I hope you'll tolerate that.

Barbara Gordon was edging out of childhood, a tragedy Bruce was delaying as long as possible for the sake of the large batch of chocolate crinkle cookies she left him every year. Bruce would like to have believed that she just truly cared and wanted to give him a present as well, but he suspected that she had gotten wise to the reason she was still receiving expensive gifts so late in her teens.

Still, it was a deal Bruce was quite content with. Even if he wasn’t okay with it, Dick would have likely left the North Pole alone—a terrifying thought—to find her and beg her for the baked goods himself.

So it was that Bruce was returning to his sleigh parked in an alley below the Gordon’s apartment with a cookie tin under the arm Miss Gordon’s new laptop had been under just minutes before, only to find that he was being robbed.

The young boy was backing toward the street, toward Bruce, dragging Bruce’s magical sack of toys along the soggy snow on the concrete, but he was having a rather hard time of it. After all, even with magical enchantments to aid the weight, Bruce was barely done with the Americas, so it was still going to be extremely heavy, and the boy was so small.

Bruce just stared, watching as the boy unknowingly trudged closer and closer with his ill-gotten goods, completely oblivious to Bruce’s presence.

About three feet from Bruce, some instinct must have alerted the boy that he wasn’t alone. He inhaled sharply and spun, his eyes blowing wide when he saw Bruce.

Bruce was raising his hands in a gesture of peace and opening his mouth to assure the boy that he wasn’t going to hurt him when the boy pulled a tire iron out of _nowhere_ and _slammed_ it into Bruce’s ribs.

Bruce doubled over and gasped for breath, dropping the cookie tin, because despite how tiny the little boy was, that had _hurt_. Still, he’d been Santa for well over a decade, ever since Alfred had officially retired, and this wasn’t the first time someone had tried to rob him, just the most successful. Hell, Bruce delivered to _Detroit._

Bruce reached out and snatched the kid back by the collar before he could get more than a couple steps. The boy shrieked in terror and started frantically thrashing against Bruce’s hand and clawing at Bruce’s hand, but Bruce couldn’t feel it through the thick glove. He brought his second arm around the boy, pinning his arms to his sides and pulling him against Bruce’s body to keep him from being able to inflict any more damage on Bruce with his tire iron or ineffectual kicking.

“Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you,” Bruce said, gently carrying him a few feet toward the outer edge of the glow of a streetlamp so he could get a look at the boy’s face.

“Let me go, you fucking pedophile!” the boy screamed, fury and fear warring in his voice.

“I’m not a pedophile,” Bruce promised.

The boy did not believe him at all and kept screaming and fighting until Bruce sighed and placed a hand over the boy’s mouth just to keep him from waking everyone up. Beyond it being impolite to disturb people’s sleep, it would be terrible PR for Santa Claus to be witnessed manhandling a young child against his will down the streets of Gotham.

“I won’t harm you. You’re alright…” Bruce gently tilted the boy’s head back so he could see a bit of it, and ah. Yes, he recognized this boy as one of his Special Cases, a child who didn’t quite fit onto the Nice List or the Naughty List. One of the many children, especially in Gotham, who had been forced to do Naughty things to survive. “….Jason Todd. Santa doesn’t hurt children.”

Jason’s eyes widened and his shriek was muffled against Bruce’s glove. He fought with renewed vigor, kicking and thrashing as wildly as possible.

Bruce frowned deeply. Normally, Santa Claus knowing a child’s name put them at ease. He’d had to return a few lost children to their parents, or runaways to the police or Social Services, and they’d always calmed down when he revealed that he knew who they were and where to take them. Alfred knowing _his_ name had certainly calmed him the Christmas night after his parents had died, when he’d run from his neglectful relatives to try to take on the world on his own. Jason, though, seemed to be even more terrified.

“I… If you won’t scream, I’ll take my hand off your mouth. Okay?” Bruce asked after a moment.

Jason made a noise like a strangled sob, and Bruce decided that whether that was a positive or negative response, he couldn’t keep the boy restrained like that. He pulled his hand away from Jason’s mouth and released the arm around his chest, but he did put his arm around Jason’s upper arm. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that Jason wouldn’t run from him, and it was clear the boy needed help. He was too thin, his clothes too ragged, his eyes too wild. Bruce knew that Catherine Todd, and unfortunate entry on the Naughty List, had died a year or so ago, and that Willis Todd, her husband and a permanent member of the Naughty List, had been shivved in prison a few months before. He tried to remember who was supposed to be taking care of Jason now, who was failing so badly, but…there was no one.

Jason was alone.

Jason pulled against Bruce’s grip, trying to dig his small fingers underneath Bruce’s to pry them away, but Bruce kept a snug grip on the boy.

“Who are you? How do you know who I am?!” Jason cried, luckily not screaming. His big blue eyes glistened with tears he was only barely restraining.

“I’m Santa, sweetheart,” Bruce said, gesturing vaguely at his outfit and the sleigh, only a few yards away. “There aren’t a lot of people in Gotham with reindeer, are there?”

Were there? Bruce didn’t think so. He glanced over at his own reindeer, who were stomping impatiently and glaring at him, and gave them a slight shrug. Donner, especially, looked quite judging.

“You’re just another villain!” Jason snapped.

“A villain who gives people presents?” Bruce raised an eyebrow. He shouldn’t mock the boy, who was only…ten? But it was too funny to keep from smiling just slightly.

Jason stabbed him with the most judging look Bruce had ever seen. “This is _Gotham_. They’re probably _bombs_.”

Bruce almost laughed before he realized that, actually, the Naughty List of Gotham did have a tendency to go a bit…overboard.

“I’m not a villain,” Bruce said. “I’m Santa Claus, and I’m going to help you. The police might be able to get you an emergency foster placement before Christmas morning.”

Bruce always carried a few extra presents, just in case. He wasn’t sure what Jason would like, since he hadn’t made a list this year, but he would make sure Jason had a present come morning.

Jason, on the other hand, dropped his jaw, and only picked it up when he lunged forward and bit Bruce’s hand with all his might.

Bruce yanked his hand back on instinct, even though it barely hurt, and Jason took off in the opposite direction. Bruce lunged after him, but Jason spun around and swung wildly with his tire iron.

“No! I’m not going to the police!” Jason snapped.

Bruce stumbled back in surprise and a learned wariness of Jason’s skill with that tire iron. “Jason, you can’t stay out here alone. It’s freezing, and you’re clearly starving.”

“NO!” Jason screamed. “I’M NOT GOING TO THE POLICE AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!”

“Jason—”

“NO!”

Bruce sighed, but didn’t step any closer to keep from tipping the balance that kept Jason more scared of turning his back to Bruce than he was of staying near him.

He hated to admit it, but he did understand. At least half of the GCPD was on the Naughty List, but most foster parents were Nice. There were enough Naughty foster parents, though, that Jason could fear them. He didn’t have any other family, except for one very distant cousin on his biological mother’s side, who was Nice. Even his birth mother, Sheila Haywood, was quite Naughty.

“Do you have any friends who could take you in,” Bruce countered carefully.

Jason scoffed bitterly. “If I trusted any of my dad’s friends half an inch, I wouldn’t be on the street.”

Bruce noticed that Jason didn’t mention his own friends, or his mother’s, but Willis Todd had been quite controlling and abusive. It was entirely possible that they didn’t have any, and any associates of Willis would be Naughty, without a doubt.

A sharp wind howled down the alley as Bruce thought. He would have barely noticed except that Jason jumped and shivered so hard that the tire iron trembled from his grip and clattered to the ground. Jason gasped and dropped to his knees to grab it as Bruce took the opportunity to step forward, unbuckling his coat as he went.

“Don’t—” Jason begged, but he didn’t get any farther before Bruce had shrugged off his coat and settled it over Jason’s shoulders.

Jason stared up at him in shock, fixed to the ground even as his spindly little fingers hugged the fur-lined coat tighter around him. Bruce pulled off his hat and dropped it on Jason’s head. The little boy had to release the coat with one hand to push the brim off his face.

Staring up at him, all wrapped up in red velvet and white fur that swamped his tiny frame, Jason looked like a Claus. Bruce smiled.

The smile faded slightly to something more calculating as he realized…he could _be_ a Claus. There was no one to miss the boy, no one to take care of him and keep him fed and loved, no one who would notice if Jason were spirited away to the most magical place on earth and kept forever. Jason wasn’t Naughty, he was scared and desperate and needed a family.

Bruce knelt down in front of Jason, and Jason just stared at him in dazed shock. Simple kindness reducing him to such a state hardened Bruce’s resolve. Jason needed a family. Jason needed _him_.

“Jason,” Bruce said quietly. “Will you come with me? To the North Pole?”

Jason’s jaw trembled slightly, in cold or fear, Bruce couldn’t tell.

“I—I don’t _go_ with strangers,” Jason whispered, his voice heartbreakingly small.

Bruce forced himself to smile. “But I’m not a stranger, Jason. You’ve known me all your life.”

Jason shook his head, but Bruce shook his own in response. Taking a chance, he reached out and placed his hand against Jason’s cheek. Jason leaned into the touch for a split, instinctive second before reluctantly pulling away and looking down.

“When you were six,” Bruce remembered, “you asked me for a sword. Now, I have a no-weapons policy, but I _did_ give you a foam sword with a curved edge. You wanted to be like one of the guards from Aladdin, I think.”

Jason gasped and looked up at Bruce searchingly. Bruce smiled, real this time.

“When you were seven, you asked me for a stuff rhinoceros. I still don’t know why, but you were very insistent that it had to be a Sumatran rhinoceros, so we made it specially for you.”

Jason bit his lip hard enough that Bruce thought it would bleed, but he pressed on.

“When you were eight, you asked me for the complete works of Jane Austen. That was a first for me, but a love like that has to be encouraged, so I made sure you had those books under your tree on Christmas morning.”

Jason’s eyes welled with tears and he opened his mouth to say something, but snapped it shut and swiped at his eyes with the cuffs of the coat.

“When you were nine,” Bruce said softly, “you asked me to give you back your mom. I’m sorry, Jason, but even I can’t bring people back.”

Jason’s breath hitched, and he hid his face behind the bright red sleeves of the coat. Bruce watched Jason’s small body shake in stifled sobs for a respectful minute before he laid a hand on Jason’s back. Jason flinched, but didn’t try to shake him off this time. After giving it another minute, Bruce slid his hand to Jason’s arm and sat down beside the boy so he could hug him against his side as he cried.

Jason threw his arms against Bruce’s chest and buried his face in the folds of Bruce’s shirt, his little arms not quite reaching all the way around him. Sobs wracked through his whole body as he desperately clung to Bruce, and Bruce didn’t hesitate to wrap his other arm around Jason and pull him onto his lap. He was so much smaller than he’d seemed when he was blustering and fighting, Bruce realized as he hugged as tightly as he dared for fear of snapping that fragile little rib cage. Jason was so young. Still so innocent and pure.

His.

Bruce tucked Jason under his chin and rubbed firm circles on his back as he waited for Jason to be done.

“This year,” Bruce said when Jason’s frantic sobs had petered off to sharp gasps and lots of eye-rubbing, “you didn’t ask me for something, but I have a present I want to give you. I want to give you a family. My family. A home, plenty to eat, a place to belong for the rest of your life, where no one will ever hurt you and you’ll never have to be scared again.”

Jason gave a loud whimpering cry that had the vague cadence of speech, but none of the coherency.

“What do you say, lad?” Bruce asked, his hand trailing down to Jason’s to give it a gentle squeeze. “Will you give it a chance?”

Jason tried to talk again, but failed and hid his face again. Bruce thought, for a terrifying second, that Jason was going to say no, but then Jason took a deep, shuddering breath, and nodded into Bruce’s chest.

Warmth sprang to life in his heart like a fire that quickly spread to his entire body, warming him despite the chill as he lifted his new son up in his arms and carried him to the sleigh, where he laid Jason carefully on the bench. He opened the small door underneath the bench and pulled out a couple of emergency blankets to wrap the boy up in. He felt dazed, like he’d been smacked upside the head with a snow shovel, but he couldn’t stop grinning.

“I’ll be right back, Jay, lad.” Jay-lad. Jaylad. He rather liked the sound of that.

Bruce pressed a quick kiss to Jason’s forehead before he climbed out of the sleigh and went to retrieve the sack of toys and Barbara Gordon’s cookie tin. He slung the sack into the back of the sleigh, and carried the tin with him back up to the bench.

“Are you hungry, Jaylad?” Bruce asked, and Jason stirred and looked up at him.

He also seemed still-dazed, but he nodded slightly and his eyes widened when Bruce handed him a cookie from the tin. They widened even farther when he bit into it.

“Good, isn’t it?” Bruce smiled.

Jason nodded fervently, giving the tin a quick glance before darting his eyes away and curling up tighter. Bruce had caught the look, though, and pulled out another cookie.

“Let’s see how those settle for now,” Bruce advised as Jason hesitantly took the second cookie. “I don’t want you to get sick or too full before we see the rest of the world.”

There would be plenty of cookies to sample, milk to drink, and more carrots than his reindeer could handle as they traveled to every home in the world. He got the occasional sandwich as well, which he would definitely insist Jason eat. He needed meat on his bones, and even though Alfred would make sure that Jason would be plump enough to fit the media’s image of Santa Claus by next Christmas, surely Bruce could start that process early.

Bruce climbed into the sleigh and sat down beside Jason, tugging the burrito of a boy up against his chest and holding him tightly to keep him secure for takeoff. Jason stiffened only a moment before he relaxed and nuzzled into Bruce’s side.

Bruce smiled broadly down at the little boy in his care and pressed another kiss to his head. “You’re safe now. I promise. You’re safe.”

Jason sniffled and nodded, but Bruce could feel the muscles against him contract into a tentative smile.

Keeping one arm around Jason, Bruce picked up the reins and adjusted them. It was time to get moving so he could get his new little son home and tucked into bed, warm and safe in the North Pole with his new father, grandfather, and brother keeping watch as soon as possible.

Bruce gave the reins a quick snap and called to each of his reindeer in turn, “Now Dasher, now Dancer! Now Prancer, and Vixen! On Cupid, on Comet, on Donner and Blitzen!”

**Author's Note:**

> So, funny story: I got a salt lamp, idk why, for Christmas from my grandma, and being the extremely mature person that I am, I immediately licked it. It actually wasn't that bad. Later, when we were leaving, I was carrying the giant box of food my grandma insisted we take with us, so I had to tell my little sister to bring my salt lick, I mean lamp. I have not lived this down yet.


End file.
